We had eight years of gross government malfeasance, and now you get mad?

You didn’t get mad when… the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when… Energy company officials were invited to dictate energy policy.

You didn’t get mad when… a covert CIA operative got exposed out of petty political spite.
You didn’t get mad when… the Patriot Act got passed..

You didn’t get mad when… we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when… we spent over 600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when… over 10 billion dollars, much of it cash, just disappeared in Iraq .
You didn’t get mad when… you found out we were torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when… the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when… we held back and let Bin Laden escape.

You didn’t get mad when… you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when… we let a major US city drown.

You didn’t get mad when… we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when… the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark.

You didn’t get mad when… using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage, which cost over 20 percent more for basically the same services that Medicare provides.

You finally got mad when… the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you. But helping other Americans… oh hell no.

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The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government to create positive solutions. We recognize that government is not the enemy of the people, but a vehicle for our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we support leaders who work toward positive solutions that benefit all Americans, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.

This needs wider reading and I highly recommend reading the entire article over at the Denver Post website.

From today’s Denver Post:

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada’s taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada’s health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn’t when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada’s GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada’s. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

Myth: Canada’s government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don’t get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Right.

And the Republicans, including their aged candidate, blow their collective gaskets hammering at us over and over again with the idea that eloquence and good speechifying aren’t enough to qualify someone for a position in the Executive Branch or for President (and make no mistake, a VP better be qualified for that job or not get selected).

I’m just sayin’.

“Only a president clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences could take the action he did today. President Bush has just sent exactly the wrong signal to the country and the world. In George Bush’s America, it is apparently okay to misuse intelligence for political gain, mislead prosecutors and lie to the FBI. George Bush and his cronies think they are above the law and the rest of us live with the consequences. The cause of equal justice in America took a serious blow today.”

So Edwards considers Bush “clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences”.

So let’s look at a clinical profile of a sociopath

Profile of the Sociopath

This website summarizes some of the common features of descriptions of the behavior of sociopaths.

• Glibness and Superficial Charm

• Manipulative and Conning
  They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
• Grandiose Sense of Self
  Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
• Pathological Lying
  Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
  A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
• Shallow Emotions
  When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
• Incapacity for Love
• Need for Stimulation
  Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
  Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
  Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
• Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
  Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet “gets by” by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
  Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
• Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
  Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
• Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
  Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
• Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
  Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

Sociopathic behavior indeed…this is what America has been reduced to.

Irving Kristol (Himmelfarb’s husband) has written in the past about the need to exploit religious and moral concepts in order to manipulate the masses, and his intellectual North Star, Leo Strauss, has advocated — as Strauss scholar Shadia Drury documented — that “those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the people in the stupor for which they are supremely fit” — a view Kristol has endorsed. One can see that dynamic powerfully at work in the interaction between these neoconservatives and the President. They have seized upon the President’s evangelical fervor and equated his “calling” to wage war for Good in the world with the neoconservative agenda of endless wars in the Middle East.

And the more unpopular the President becomes as a result, the more of a failure these policies are, the more strongly they tell him to ignore all of that, that none of it matters, that his God and history will conclude that he did The Right Thing, provided that he continues steadfastly to pursue their agenda. And the President believes that. That is why nothing will stop him in pursuing the path he created years ago when, in January, 2002, he became convinced to name not only Iraq, but also Iran, as standing members of the “Axis of Evil” (even though our relations with Iran were rapidly improving at the time) and cited the 9/11 attacks in order to all but vow war on those countries, despite their having nothing to do with those attacks. The President’s “lessons” at the feet of neoconservatives continue, and he is as faithful a student as ever.

As incoherent and scattered as bush administration policy and implementation may appear to rational people on the outside looking in the fact is he’s been remarkably consistent on this approach from the beginning, using the Straussian “noble lies and pious frauds” to keep the less observant distracted.

I bring this up because Friedman’s latest column, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Know, Don’t Help,” is yet another “the war should have worked” piece, and it’s of a sort we’re likely to see quite often in upcoming years.

What we have to remember about America’s half-baked propaganda machine is that, dumb as it is, it always keeps its eye on the ball. The war in Iraq is lost, everyone knows that, but there are future wars to think about. When a war goes wrong, the reason can never that the invasion was simply a bad, immoral decision, a hopelessly fucked-up idea that even a child could have seen through. No, we always have to make sure that the excuse for the next war is woven into the autopsy of the current military failure. That’s why to this day we’re still hearing about how Vietnam was lost because a) the media abandoned the war effort b) the peace movement undermined the national will and c) the public, and the Pentagon, misread the results of the Tet offensive, seeing defeat where there actually was a victory.

After a few decades of that, we were ready to go to war again — all we had to do, we figured, was keep the cameras away from the bloody bits, ignore the peace movement, and blow off any and all bad news from the battlefield. And we did all of these things for quite a long time in Iraq, but, maddeningly, Iraq still turned out to be a failure.

In the midst of the biggest foreign policy and military disaster of my lifetime it is depressing to find that our columnists, commentators, those tasked by the print and broadcast media to give us backstory, depth and analysis, have shown themselves to be every bit as blind to reality as is the Bush government itself. Whether it is the Friedman Unit and his endless apologia for disaster or maybe even worse those pundits who are now railing on about how this invasion/occupation has been mismanaged, as if all it would have taken to pull this off was someone who got an A in his college business courses instead of a C-, these people have shown an incredible ability to dodge reality.

Now there are a whole lot of folks, in the blogs and even in the more obscure media, who have been trying to smack them in the face with a great big ball of reality but these guys are good, really good, at dodging and ducking, bobbing and weaving, and generally avoiding taking that smack upside the head that would require them to pick up that unpleasant ball of reality, hold it in their hands, and finally admit that it has substance.

I hope it won’t take much longer for all that dancing away from reality to take its toll and for them to take one right in the kisser and maybe then we can get around to some real accountability demanding on the part of the media.

This rather interesting tidbit of news managed to rate mention in the bowels of that CBS news site. If you Google it you’ll find the only mentions of it is in obscure blogs (not as obscure as this one though) and if you search Google News you’ll find, as of 7:30 EST, a whopping two whole mentions, one of which is zdnet in the UK.

Yet read the comments after the linked article. You’ll see the rightwingers whining about being picked on by the “liberal MSM” because they mention that this guy has apparently made substantial donations to the Natonal Republican Campaign Committee and further claims to be a lifetime member of the National Republican Senate Committee’s Inner Circle, a rather select group of people.

Imagine if you will, the uproar, fueled by Drudge of course, had this been donor to the Democratic Party. There would be Breaking News! on the Fox Noise Channel, and speeches by outraged Republicans on the floor of the House and Senate and Tony Snow would pontificate from the podium that “of course we don’t think the Democrat(sic) Party supports terrorism but you have to wonder why they took this guy’s money”.

Oh yeah, they’d have a field day with that one.

But Right Wingnut whining in the comments section of that CBS News article about how picked on they are aside, this story has rated not a peep on any other mainstream site that I can see. We can only hope that others will pick it up and dream that someone might point out the logical inconsistencies in how the Right Wingnuts demonize their opponents versus the abject silence on the part of media and liberal politicians when something like this involves one of their own.

Now, do I really think the Republican Party supports terrorists? Of course not, what could ever give you that idea? Oh, that headline up there? Why, that’s just to get your attention and make a rhetorical point. I would never suggest such a thing. Never.

(and yes, I’m making a point there. To hear how a real Wingnut weasels out of his own words listen to Glenn Greenwald take apart Frank Gaffney and listen to how Gaffney whines and slithers out from under his own words, always refusing to be held accountable for what he said. )

Here’s Glenn’s new blog over at Salon. And yeah, I know it requires clicking through an ad but they make it pretty painless and the result of getting to read Glenn in a venue where he’ll get even more exposure is well worth it.

It’s a great piece but in my mind it doesn’t go far enough. There are more inconsistencies than he lists. For one thing the military supplies that are arriving from Iran are going to Iraqi Shi’a militants like Muqtada al Sadr and they are certainly causing a great deal of death and destruction, as Sadr’s Shi’a militias and associated groups are responsible for a lot of the carnage in Iraq. But most of the American deaths are coming from the Sunni militias, both former Saddam supporters (he was a Sunni Muslim, albeit not a very worshipful one), former Baathists (also Sunni) and Al Qaeda infiltrators and supporters (ditto on the Sunni thing).

Now let’s remember that even though Saddam was a Sunni Muslim and his Baathist party had Sunni roots and support he was most definitely a secular leader, despite last minute displays of faithfulness and ritual, and he was violently opposed to even Sunni religious extremists such as bin Laden and AQ and his ruthlessness in pursuing any popular clerics or fundamentalist movements in Iraq, either Sunni or Shi’a, prevented fundamentalist movements like Iranian Shiite extremists or Sunni fundamentalists like bin Laden from ever getting a foothold in his country. He perceived al Sadr’s father, the true Shi’a cleric, as so much of a threat that he had him imprisoned and killed.

With Saddam gone and our failure to recognize that the breakdown in Iraqi society that came with our inwillingness to secure the country for the citizens would fuel dissatisfaction and create a rise in fundamentalism, the increase in Sunni fundamentalism, both homegrown and AQ fueled, is understandable and predictable. But while the Shi’a are basically waging a sectarian war against the Sunnis, a true Civil War, they are not responsible for most of the attacks on American troops, Fallujah notwithstanding. (a point Rich makes in passing) The vast majority of American casualties come from Sunni militias in Baghdad and the predominantly Sunni provinces around it and there is no way in Hell, literally, that Iran is supplying sophisticated weapons and support to Iraqi Sunnis. It ain’t happening.

So if protecting the troops is the reason for going after the Iranian suppliers of weapons and training then the troops aren’t going to see much benefit from it because the Iranian weapons aren’t what’s killing them.

So where are the troop-killers getting their supplies? A lot of it is recycled stuff from all the armories we also failed to secure after the invasion and from which recently fired Iraqi army and Republican Guard troops (Sunni again) helped themselves to thousands of tons of munitions and weaponry. But there is now evidence that a lot of the newer stuff is coming from Saudi Arabia, either directly or indirectly.

So, more misdirection from Bush, who apparently wants to find a pretext, any pretext, to attack Iran. This is an instant replay of his Iraqi maneuvering when he created phony reasons to invade that country. But it isn’t Iran, it’s Saudi Arabia and if the reality of that also seems like instant replay you’d be right. It’s the instant replay of 9/11, which was planned by a Saudi and carried out by Saudis and Yemenis operating out of Afghanistan. Not an Iraqi in sight.

But just like then, we are now ignoring the very real involvement of Saudi Arabia, our “good friends”, to focus instead on someone else we don’t like by creating excuses for misdirection.

Interestingly, if Bush really means “it’s about protecting the troops” not whether the Iranian government itself actually ordered attacks on US troops, then one would think he’d respond to the actual threats to the troops. But that would only be if you thought it was about protecting the troops. From his actions, which belie his words, it isn’t about protecting the troops, it’s about creating yet another front in his neverending war.

Because, as we all know, Oceania is always at war with Eurasia, unless it’s at war with Eastasia.

Frank Rich touches on this a bit in his piece but the broader implications concerning Saudi involvement are left out and I think they are important.

I saw a quote today and figured it was as good a candidate as any for a bit of a test. We’re hearing so much these days from the reactionaries on the conservative side about how Democrats and other assorted anti-Iraq Fiasco types are “emboldening the enemy” simply by pointing out the endless failures of this administration’s policies. It amazes me really. We can throw out the old Teddy Roosevelt quote (he being a noted America hater you know) where he said:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

but the fundamental message in this quote is apparently so abhorrent to the current conservative mindset that I’ve yet to see anyone actually address the substance of it. They merely do the virtual equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and squawking loudly so they won’t have acknowledge it.

Then of course there was the recent phony “Lincoln” quote drummed up by J. Michael Waller and regurgitated by Frank Gaffney in his Washington Times column to which I would link except it has now been removed from the WashTimes site because the glaringly obvious fraud it contains was apparently too embarrassing even for them. But that didn’t stop Rep. Don Young (R-AK) from repeating it on the floor of the House the other day. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, I always say.

But, like I said, I ran across this particular quote the other day and thought I’d post it so everyone (all three of you who might be reading this thing) could spend a day or so trying to guess who it might be. I have taken a slight liberty which will be explained later:

As to the mode of terminating the war, and securing peace, the President is equally wandering and indefinite. First, it is to be done by a more vigorous prosecution of the war in the vital parts of the enemy’s country; and, after apparently talking himself tired on this point, the President drops down into a half despairing tone, and tells us that “with a people distracted and divided by contending factions, and a government subject to constant changes, by successive revolutions, the continued success of our arms may fail to secure a satisfactory peace.” Then he suggests the propriety of wheedling the Iraqi people to desert the counsels of their own leaders, and trusting in our protection to set up a government from which we can secure a satisfactory peace; telling us that “this may become the only mode of obtaining such a peace.” But soon he falls into doubt of this too; and then drops back on to the already half abandoned ground of “more vigorous prosecution.” All this shows that the President is, in no wise, satisfied with his own positions. … His mind, tasked beyond its power, is running hither and thither, like some tortured creature on a burning surface, finding no position on which it can settle down and be at ease.

Again, it is a singular omission in this message that it nowhere intimates when the President expects the the war to terminate. … As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity!

Have fun, I’ll post the correct answer in a day or so.

Yet the lies and misinformation about Democrats persists, pushed by the Republicans who no doubt believe the myths themselves and by a media too lazy and historically ignorant to do anything but be willing stenographers.

From Maha:

George McGovern did not lose the 1972 presidential election because he called for withdrawal from Vietnam. I repeat, George McGovern did not lose the 1972 presidential election because he called for withdrawal from Vietnam.

How do I know this? Simple. In 1972, both bleeping major party candidates — Republican Nixon and Democrat McGovern — were calling for a bleeping withdrawal from bleeping Vietnam.

The Vietnam issue in 1972 was not at all parallel to the pro-war and anti-war positions people are taking now. In 1972, a substantial majority of the electorate recognized the course was unstayable and wanted it to end. And in 1972, President Richard bleeping Nixon and his Secretary of State, the motherbleeping Henry Kissinger, tried frantically to end the war before the 1972 elections. The Nixon-Kissinger “October surprise” was the announcement of a peace settlement with North Vietnam (which fell through after the elections).